“Florence.”

She looked at him with her tear-dimmed eyes and made no reply.

Slowly, he said: 

“To defend yourself, Florence—­for, though I am sure you do not know it, you are under that obligation—­you must understand the terrible position in which events have placed you.

“Florence, the Prefect of Police has been led by the logical outcome of those events to come to the final conclusion that the person entering this room with an evident claim to the inheritance is the person who killed the Mornington heirs.  You entered the room, Florence, and you are undoubtedly Cosmo Mornington’s heir.”

He saw her shake from head to foot and turn as pale as death.  Nevertheless, she uttered no word and made no gesture of protest.

He went on: 

“It is a formal accusation.  Do you say nothing in reply?”

She waited some time and then declared: 

“I have nothing to say.  The whole thing is a mystery.  What would you have me reply?  I do not understand!”

Don Luis stood quivering with anguish in front of her.  He stammered: 

“Is that all?  Do you accept?”

After a second, she said, in an undertone: 

“Explain yourself, I beg of you.  What you mean, I suppose, is that, if I do not reply, I accept the accusation?”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“Arrest—­prison—­”

“Prison!”

She seemed to be suffering hideously.  Her beautiful features were distorted with fear.  To her mind, prison evidently represented the torments undergone by Marie and Sauverand.  It must mean despair, shame, death, all those horrors which Marie and Sauverand had been unable to avoid and of which she in her turn would become the victim.

An awful sense of hopelessness overcame her, and she moaned: 

“How tired I am!  I feel that there is nothing to be done!  I am stifled by the mystery around me!  Oh, if I could only see and understand!”

There was another long pause.  Leaning over her, M. Desmalions studied her face with concentrated attention.  Then, as she did not speak, he put his hand to the bell on his table and struck it three times.

Don Luis did not stir from where he stood, with his eyes despairingly fixed on Florence.  A battle was raging within him between his love and generosity, which led him to believe the girl, and his reason, which obliged him to suspect her.  Was she innocent or guilty?  He did not know.  Everything was against her.  And yet why had he never ceased to love her?

Weber entered, followed by his men.  M. Desmalions spoke to him and pointed to Florence.  Weber went up to her.

“Florence!” said Don Luis.

She looked at him and looked at Weber and his men; and, suddenly, realizing what was coming, she retreated, staggered for a moment, bewildered and fainting, and fell back in Don Luis’s arms: